| First reading | 1 Corinthians 4:6 - 15 © |
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| Now in everything I have said here, brothers, I have taken Apollos and myself as an example (remember the maxim: ‘Keep to what is written’); it is not for you, so full of your own importance, to go taking sides for one man against another. In any case, brother, has anybody given you some special right? What do you have that was not given to you? And if it was given, how can you boast as though it were not? Is it that you have everything you want – that you are rich already, in possession of your kingdom, with us left outside? Indeed I wish you were really kings, and we could be kings with you! But instead, it seems to me, God has put us apostles at the end of his parade, with the men sentenced to death; it is true – we have been put on show in front of the whole universe, angels as well as men. Here we are, fools for the sake of Christ, while you are the learned men in Christ; we have no power, but you are influential; you are celebrities, we are nobodies. To this day, we go without food and drink and clothes; we are beaten and have no homes; we work for our living with our own hands. When we are cursed, we answer with a blessing; when we are hounded, we put up with it; we are insulted and we answer politely. We are treated as the offal of the world, still to this day, the scum of the earth. I am saying all this not just to make you ashamed but to bring you, as my dearest children, to your senses. You might have thousands of guardians in Christ, but not more than one father and it was I who begot you in Christ Jesus by preaching the Good News. |
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| Psalm or canticle: Psalm 144 |
| Gospel | Luke 6:1 - 5 © |
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| Now one sabbath Jesus happened to be taking a walk through the cornfields, and his disciples were picking ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands and eating them. Some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing something that is forbidden on the sabbath day?’ Jesus answered them, ‘So you have not read what David did when he and his followers were hungry how he went into the house of God, took the loaves of offering and ate them and gave them to his followers, loaves which only the priests are allowed to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is master of the sabbath’. | |
O God, come to my aid.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen. Alleluia.
A suitable hymn may be inserted at this point.
| Psalm 135 (136) |
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| A paschal hymn |
| Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his love is for ever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his love is for ever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his love is for ever. He alone works wonders, for his love is for ever. In his wisdom he made the heavens, for his love is for ever. He set the Earth upon the waters, for his love is for ever. He created the great lights, for his love is for ever. The sun, to rule over the day, for his love is for ever. The moon and stars, to rule over the night, for his love is for ever. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. |
| Psalm 135 (136) |
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| He struck down the first-born of Egypt, for his love is for ever. He led Israel out from their midst, for his love is for ever. With a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his love is for ever. He divided the Red Sea in two, for his love is for ever. He led Israel out through the sea, for his love is for ever. He overthrew Pharaoh and his army, for his love is for ever. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. |
| Psalm 135 (136) |
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| He led his people through the wilderness, for his love is for ever. He struck down great kings, for his love is for ever. Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his love is for ever. And Og, the king of Bashan, for his love is for ever. He gave their land to his people, for his love is for ever. A heritage for Israel his servant, for his love is for ever. He remembered us in our affliction, for his love is for ever. He rescued us from our enemies, for his love is for ever. He gives food to all creatures that live, for his love is for ever. Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his love is for ever. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. |
| Reading | Jeremiah 31:15 - 34 © |
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| A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly: it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. The Lord says this: Stop your weeping, dry your eyes, your hardships will be redressed: they shall come back from the enemy country. There is hope for your descendants: your sons will come home to their own lands. I plainly hear the grieving of Ephraim, ‘You have disciplined me, I accepted the discipline like a young bull untamed. Bring me back, let me come back, for you are the Lord my God! Yes, I turned away, but have since repented; I understood, I beat my breast. I was deeply ashamed, covered with confusion; yes, I still bore the disgrace of my youth’. Is Ephraim, then, so dear a son to me, a child so favoured, that after each threat of mine I must still remember him, still be deeply moved for him, and let my tenderness yearn over him? It is the Lord who speaks. Set up signposts, raise landmarks; mark the road well, the way by which you went. Come home, virgin of Israel, come home to these towns of yours. How long will you hesitate, disloyal daughter? For the Lord is creating something new on earth: the Woman sets out to find her Husband again. See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I am going to sow the seed of men and cattle on the House of Israel and on the House of Judah. And as I once watched them to tear up, to knock down, to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so now I shall watch over them to build and to plant. It is the Lord who speaks. In those days people will no longer say: ‘The fathers have eaten unripe grapes; the children’s teeth are set on edge’. But each is to die for his own sin. Every man who eats unripe grapes is to have his own teeth set on edge. See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant of mine, so I had to show them who was master. It is the Lord who speaks. No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is the Lord who speaks. Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest – it is the Lord who speaks – since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind. |
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| Reading | A letter of St Peter Claver |
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| The arrival of a slave ship | |
| Yesterday, May 30, 1627, on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, numerous blacks, brought from the rivers of Africa, disembarked from a large ship. Carrying two baskets of oranges, lemons, sweet biscuits, and I know not what else, we hurried toward them. When we approached their quarters, we thought we were entering another Guinea. We had to force our way through the crowd until we reached the sick. Large numbers of the sick were lying on wet ground or rather in puddles of mud. To prevent excessive dampness, someone had thought of building up a mound with a mixture of tiles and broken pieces of bricks. This, then, was their couch, a very uncomfortable one not only for that reason, but especially because they were naked, without any clothing to protect them. We lad aside our cloaks, therefore, and brought from a warehouse whatever was handy to build a platform. In that way we covered a space to which we at last transferred the sick, by forcing a passage through bands of slaves. Then we divided the sick into two groups: one group my companion approached with an interpreter, while I addressed the other group. There were two blacks, nearer death than life, already cold, whose pulse could scarcely be detected. With the help of a tile we pulled some live coals together and placed them in the middle near the dying men. Into this fire we tossed aromatics. Of these we had two wallets full, and we used them all up on this occasion. Then, using our own cloaks, for they had nothing of this sort, and to ask the owners for others would have been a waste of words, we provided for them a smoke treatment, by which they seemed to recover their warmth and the breath of life. The joy in their eyes as they looked at us was something to see. This was how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions. And in fact, convinced as they were that they had been brought here to be eaten, any other language would have proved utterly useless. Then we sat, or rather knelt, beside them and bathed their faces and bodies with wine. We made every effort to encourage them with friendly gestures and displayed in their presence the emotions which somehow naturally tend to hearten the sick. After this we began an elementary instruction about baptism, that is, the wonderful effects of the sacrament on body and soul. When by their answers to our questions they showed that they had sufficiently understood this, we went on to a more extensive instruction, namely, about the one God, who rewards and punishes each one according to his merit, and the rest. We asked them to make an act of contrition and to manifest their detestation of their sins. Finally, when they appeared sufficiently prepared, we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Passion. Showing them Christ fastened to the cross, as he is depicted on the baptismal font on which streams of blood flow down from his wounds, we led them in reciting an act of contrition in their own language. |
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| A concluding prayer may follow here. |